


No amount of time (could've prepared me for this)

by Isso



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, This Is Sad, like for real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:13:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22821565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isso/pseuds/Isso
Summary: You don’t know how to handle it all.The busy hallways, the vending machine coffee, the constant beeping of machines. You don’t really know how to handle seeing her like this.It’s been 22 hours.
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 13
Kudos: 53





	No amount of time (could've prepared me for this)

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song 'Better Now' by Oh Wonder. So maybe listen to this before of while reading this.

You don’t know how to handle it all.   
The busy hallways, the vending machine coffee, the constant beeping of machines. You don’t really know how to handle seeing her like this.

It’s been 22 hours and you’ve been raking up steps on your tracker from pacing up and down the room. They tell you to go home, that they’ll call if there’s a change. For now she’s just sleeping, at least that’s what you tell yourself. The truth might destroy you. You’ve prayed to every god you know, begging that she’ll wake up. She doesn’t. 

The plastic cup of coffee you set down on the little table by the window has gone cold. You’ve never liked vending machine coffee anyways. You grimace as you take a sip anyways, setting the cup back down before taking a seat next to her bed, taking in the battered form of her. You fidget with the loose string on the sleeve of your blue sweater, feeling useless and helpless. You can’t do anything, you can’t take it back, you can’t make it go away. You can’t make her wake up. You can’t even close your eyes, because as soon as you mind is standing still for a moment the voice on the other end of the line comes creeping in again. You almost didn’t pick up in you angry state. Now you’ll never forget.   
Drunk driver. Intersection. Collision. Semi-truck. Surgery. Critical condition.  
You press your eyes shut as tightly as you can, shaking your head, forcing the images you’ve made up to go along with the story out of you head.   
You don’t think you’ll make it if you lose her. She’s all you’ve ever known.

\-----

It’s been 62 hours. Nothing has changed, yet. You still haven’t gone home, even though they keep telling you to. You’ve been feeling more useless with every passing minute so you’ve done the only thing you can think of. You go her flowers, because she loves them. Closing your eyes in the flower shop you could imagine her standing beside you, laughing, smelling the flowers, happy. You go Anemones. Her favourite. The pretty, lilac, petals standing out against the otherwise white and sterile room. You put your hot cup of coffee down on the bedside table after taking a seat in the chair next to her bed. It’s old and creaky and uncomfortable, but it’s next to her, so it’s good for now.   
You stare at the tubes coming out of her hands, mouth, nose.   
She doesn’t look like herself. 

You feel sick.  
A nurse walks in, looking at you with sad and sympathetic eyes. You watch her like a hawk when she adjusts the tubes, checks the screens, jots down notes on her tablet. Before she leaves she comments on the pretty flowers you got your girlfriend.   
You give a small smile and nod.  
Your coffee has gone cold again.  
You pretend that the fact that Anemones mean ‘fading hope’ is not making your stomach tie itself up in knots. They’re her favourite. You don’t think you’ll make it if you lose her.

\-----

It’s been 119 hours.   
You try not to count in days. Somehow that makes it too real, makes time pass too quickly.   
You still haven’t been home, haven’t left the hospital.   
The nurses were kind enough to provide you with a blanket and pillow, but your back aches from sleeping crammed up in the wooden chair next to her bed. Everything is better than going home though. The bed you usually share with her would feel empty and too big without her in it to hold you tight. 

\-----

It’s been 244 hours.   
The doctors told you they don’t know if or when she’ll wake up. They are trying to prepare you, for what they believe to be inevitable. But this is still your Lexa lying in that hospital bed, attached to an endless amount of tubes and wires and machines. Screens, that supervise her heartbeat.   
Her heartbeat. The one sound you loved falling asleep to, you head laying on her chest, snuggling close.   
You remember how her heart would speed up when you first kissed, how you could feel it beating out of its chest in a steady rhythm the first time you made love. You remember how your own heartbeat stuttered and skipped when she first told you she loved you, years ago in that bar in the city.  
Now her heartbeat does not acknowledge your touch. Still that monotonous sound of her hearts rhythm on the screen sounds like music to your ears. Only it’s a song you hate. A bittersweet symphony, because it means she’s a live, but you’re not sure if it’s still the same heartbeat. Your hearts don’t beat in sync anymore.  
You think you want yours to stop as well, if hers does.

\-----

It’s been 456 hours.   
20 days.   
You’ve been counting the days for a while now, because this is very much real and maybe, just maybe, you’ll have to deal with it.  
You’ve been home. You’ve taken a shower, laid in the bed you usually share, tossed and turned while the tears ran down your face, leaving behind angry, wet trails. You didn’t want to leave, really, but the beeping of her heart monitor had made you sick, had made you angry, furious even.   
Somehow leaving her side had felt like betraying her, like giving up.   
You ended up sleeping on the couch, because the bed just didn’t feel right without her. 

The next days you replaced the flowers. You’ve not given up. You’d never give up.

\-----

It’s been 924 hours.   
The doctors said that the chances of her waking up where getting slimmer with each passing day. That maybe it was time to let her go. You yelled at them through angry tears and a red face.   
They didn’t know Lexa. Your Lexa. They didn’t know what she had been through, what she had overcome.   
After the rage had left you body and was replaced by sorrow again, you sat by her side, resting your head on her chest carefully. The beating of her heart gave you comfort. She was still there, still the girl you had loved since you were 6 years old and she had kissed your scraped knee, wiping tears from you face, how could they not see?

The bruises and cuts on her face had healed and she almost looked like she used to when you woke up next to her on lazy Sunday mornings. She looked like she might open her eyes at any moment, asking you what’s wrong, asking you to take her home with that smile of hers that could light up even the darkest spots of you mind. 

You realised you had been crying only after lifting your head from her chest, seeing the wet spot. You reach for your coffee. It’s cold again. You wonder why you keep buying it.

\-----

It’s been 1417 hours.  
The nurses know your name by now and they greet you kindly when you come in everyday after work. Your life had to go on somehow, even if it felt useless now. The first few days back in the gallery you had been glued to your phone, just in case. Now you keep it on silent.   
You walk into her room; the sound of the heart monitor greets you. You place your plastic cup filled with coffee on the table, make your way over to her, kissing her on the cheek. You take a seat next to her bed and start telling her about your day, a routine you had fallen into somehow. It made you feel like she was still there. You tell her about the art show your boss wants you to organise. You halt in your story, frowning. You try to fight back the tears that start to blur your vision. You wish she could reply, you wish she’d give you that crooked smile of hers and tell you how proud she is of you.   
It’s not fair.  
None of this is fair, you think, as you get up, grab your coat and exit the room hastily.   
One of the nurses ask you if your alright as you all but sprint through the hallway. You feel like you can’t breath. When you get to the roof and the cold air hits your face, you feel your lungs expand again. 

It’s not fair.  
Lexa was perfect. You were perfect together. Now you feel incomplete.   
You know it’s time. You know this isn’t what she’d want. But you can’t. You just can’t.   
Because what if she wakes up, what if you can be whole again – with her. 

\-----

It’s been 1856 hours.   
When you decide it’s time to let her go.   
You’re alone in the room with the nurse.   
You feel numb, clutching her hand forcefully, screaming in your head ‘wake up, please wake up, this is your last chance’. But she doesn’t.   
So when the nurse ask you if you’re ready, you’re really not, but you nod, because you think that maybe Lexa is ready now.   
The nurse explains the procedure, explains what’s going to happen now, but you’re not listening.   
She turns off the machine that keeps Lexa breathing, your Lexa.   
The heart monitor stutters for a second before the line goes flat.  
The nurse turns it off and leaves the room quietly.  
The silence that follows eats you up inside.  
You’re choking on the sobs that escape you while your clutching to her body.  
‘Lexa please, please’ is all you manage to get out.   
But no amount of begging can change this.   
You crumble and fall under the weight of it all, resting your head on her chest one last time.  
1856 hours still didn’t prepare you for this.

No amount of time could’ve prepared you for this.


End file.
